I'm so done with the Sh*#hole. I have seen the older reps, who used to be our "mentors" just a few years ago, being pushed out of this company for nothing other than they are making a good salary. I'm not quite 50 yet, but getting close, and I know if I last that long the same will happen to me. Despite what I do or how hard I work it won't be enough. So today I've decided that I'm done with them. I will no longer make the extra early call or late call. I will do a lunch here & there collect a few signatures. I figure this will take me three hours a day max. Which equates to 15 hours a week. I'm gonna work a max of 15 hours a week until 2015. This is my version of 15 by 15. From now on, I will have an 25 extra hours a week to work out, spend time with my spouse or double dip with an extra job (which would be good since we didn't get much of a raise the past couple years). You want 15 by 15? It's now time for me to give it to you my way. Bend over Merck............Who's in with me?

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When will America wake to the fact that its government can pass all sorts of regulations that seem to make age discrimination and pushing people out the door - for no reason - illegal but those laws all come to nothing because America investigates and prosecutes nothing. Merck views you as a commodity to be adjusted and upsized and downsized at their whim. It does not make any difference to them (or your precious government) whether you have invested your personal effort into getting skilled or your personal cash into getting a university degree. Merck treats their capital assets with more tenderness simply because the law requires them to reflect a loss of value - a virtual penalty - when they write those assets off. But Wall Street actually celebrates when companies downsize their labor force simply because that asset reduction doesn't reflect a failed investment on the company's books - it only hits the fired employees' books. Until working professionals realize that protection from unfair and illegal labor practices does not come simply because they hold university degrees or are citizens of the US they will continue to be played for fools by their employers. What exactly do you think exempt employee means? It means that you are exempt from protection under most labor laws. These days it also seems to mean that you are exempt from common sense or thinking about doing anything other than writing futile notes on CafePharma.

Most people posting here are not slackers by nature. They are being turned into slackers simply because they are tired of the one-sided nature of their relationship with Merck. They would prefer to work their 45-50 hours/week and to live their lives fairly certain that they will not be treated unfairly or dumped unceremoniously. The US is headed to another generation of organizing labor. In this version, non-managerial professionals will be on the organized side of the equation. All the precedents for organizing labor that existed in the first half of the last century are in place, all that is missing is the for working professionals to drop their hubris causes them to consider themselves too good to organize. All the while they stay in this present labor dynamic they are on the losing end of both government protection and industry leverage. Perfect suckers if you will. Don't think for a minute that the capitalists that formed successful multinationals in their hometown and had loyalty to the same are running any of the major multinationals anymore. Those capitalists are dead and buried and their children have sold out. MNCs have been bought out by slick financial wizards that replace the loyalty equation that many of you bought into with other equations written with sharp pencils. Work gets moved overseas and flavor-of-the-month business plans cause massive job disruptions. The former are encouraged by generous tax breaks bought and paid for through contributions to political parties and the latter encouraged by trivial penalties for dropping employees.

It may take decades but the idea that a working professional (for example your children) will invest hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money to be qualified for a job with a multinational that could and would boot them out on a whim will appear to be a pretty silly concept in hindsight. Government in the future must either tax corporations to subsidize that education or demand long-term contracts to offset that investment. Presently there is no reason for government to get involved because unemployed folks don't make contributions to political parties. And the current ever-increasing revenues of Merck in the face of their actually dismal performance is largely due to exactly this practice. Why would Merck change? Professional employees must turn off Fox News, smell the coffee, and get themselves organized around jobs and job security. Stop thinking that the current power players are ever going to change anything. What if all non-managerial professionals walked out for a day? What would the stock price do? Would your boss actually know how to get your job done? Could they spare the time to take their head out their own boss's butt to get it done?

I always say, think about your relationship with your employer as you would a personal, say romantic, relationship. How much are you willing to dump into a relationship with a person you don't trust and treats like you shit? who you are SURE will dump you sometime down the road for a shinier and easier version of yourself? who will lie and cheat and belittle you? who will then tell everyone it was YOUR fault for the relationship's demise...you did this and that, and everything under the sun wrong, when you're pretty darn sure you were a good & devoted companion. So, with these thoughts in mind, if you decide to stay in the dysfunctional relationship and KNOW it's dysfunctional, then go at it half-ass (or less), just like they do with you. Don't be a dummy and commit yourself to someone who doesn't value you. OR...you leave the situation and seek out a better companion. Trust is trust and value is value, whether it's from a person or a company. Just have to respect yourself... however you choose to do it.

I always say, think about your relationship with your employer as you would a personal, say romantic, relationship. How much are you willing to dump into a relationship with a person you don't trust and treats like you shit? who you are SURE will dump you sometime down the road for a shinier and easier version of yourself? who will lie and cheat and belittle you? who will then tell everyone it was YOUR fault for the relationship's demise...you did this and that, and everything under the sun wrong, when you're pretty darn sure you were a good & devoted companion. So, with these thoughts in mind, if you decide to stay in the dysfunctional relationship and KNOW it's dysfunctional, then go at it half-ass (or less), just like they do with you. Don't be a dummy and commit yourself to someone who doesn't value you. OR...you leave the situation and seek out a better companion. Trust is trust and value is value, whether it's from a person or a company. Just have to respect yourself... however you choose to do it.

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great post...so true...that is why I left Merck...it is like being in an abusive relationship...Especially if you are older and tenured and they start making up their
lies to harass you out...(and they do!)

great post...so true...that is why I left Merck...it is like being in an abusive relationship...Especially if you are older and tenured and they start making up their
lies to harass you out...(and they do!)

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Especially if older? Their greys will come too and karma says they'll be on the receiving line of what they do.....

Honestly, do you think that management thinks about what might happen in their future. They all have latched onto someone higher up that protects them and rewards them for anything that suggests loyalty. The secret to success beyond reason at Merck has always been being on the goo side of someone up the power chain. If you were "in" you were taken care of; if you were not in, you never would be in and your happiness, your career progression, and your job security it mattered depended little on how wonderful you were. This system was in place even during the most successful years. However, in those years Merck managed to recruit a hell of a lot of real talent and had a lot of people - still - that could harness that talent during the 5-10 years that they were going to stay trying to succeed. These days, management is largely made of the kiss-asses that had their incompetence protected over the last 25 years and the company hasn't recruited top talent in a decade. Management is never going to worry about the consequences of treating good people badly, it is a behavior that hasn't mattered throughout their entire career. However, as they consider more and more the sad state of the company, they will consider getting as much out of the old girl as soon as they can. That combination of no decency towards those that are still blindly getting things done and a me-first management style can only make things much worse for anyone unlucky enough to not be part of the "in" crowd but also not be part of those that get a package. That would be about 50,000 of you all.

Honestly, do you think that management thinks about what might happen in their future. They all have latched onto someone higher up that protects them and rewards them for anything that suggests loyalty. The secret to success beyond reason at Merck has always been being on the goo side of someone up the power chain. If you were "in" you were taken care of; if you were not in, you never would be in and your happiness, your career progression, and your job security it mattered depended little on how wonderful you were. This system was in place even during the most successful years. However, in those years Merck managed to recruit a hell of a lot of real talent and had a lot of people - still - that could harness that talent during the 5-10 years that they were going to stay trying to succeed. These days, management is largely made of the kiss-asses that had their incompetence protected over the last 25 years and the company hasn't recruited top talent in a decade. Management is never going to worry about the consequences of treating good people badly, it is a behavior that hasn't mattered throughout their entire career. However, as they consider more and more the sad state of the company, they will consider getting as much out of the old girl as soon as they can. That combination of no decency towards those that are still blindly getting things done and a me-first management style can only make things much worse for anyone unlucky enough to not be part of the "in" crowd but also not be part of those that get a package. That would be about 50,000 of you all.

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Well said, very well said since it is so true. Where there was a time when the most talented would automatically include Merck among best places to work and establish a career, the sun has gone down on that day quite some time ago.

Honestly, do you think that management thinks about what might happen in their future. They all have latched onto someone higher up that protects them and rewards them for anything that suggests loyalty. The secret to success beyond reason at Merck has always been being on the goo side of someone up the power chain. If you were "in" you were taken care of; if you were not in, you never would be in and your happiness, your career progression, and your job security it mattered depended little on how wonderful you were. This system was in place even during the most successful years. However, in those years Merck managed to recruit a hell of a lot of real talent and had a lot of people - still - that could harness that talent during the 5-10 years that they were going to stay trying to succeed. These days, management is largely made of the kiss-asses that had their incompetence protected over the last 25 years and the company hasn't recruited top talent in a decade. Management is never going to worry about the consequences of treating good people badly, it is a behavior that hasn't mattered throughout their entire career. However, as they consider more and more the sad state of the company, they will consider getting as much out of the old girl as soon as they can. That combination of no decency towards those that are still blindly getting things done and a me-first management style can only make things much worse for anyone unlucky enough to not be part of the "in" crowd but also not be part of those that get a package. That would be about 50,000 of you all.

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this person totally gets it...I wish now that I had not wasted so many years in the pharmaceutical industry and at Merck...It really is pretty much a Ponzi scheme at this point...As the above poster explains in detail, unless you are part of the "in crowd" at Merck, you are pretty much screwed.

Pretty low that story of life here.....in crowds connected, special rule benders, who will try every tactic to get what they want....

We see it lived out in rep land too. Who gets their every wish, who throws a tantrum and has their butt powdered, who trips up the other guy and takes the praise, who walks all over everyone, snaps their fingers and takes it over.....Dont learn the hard way, if you have something they want...watch out.

I always say, think about your relationship with your employer as you would a personal, say romantic, relationship. How much are you willing to dump into a relationship with a person you don't trust and treats like you shit? who you are SURE will dump you sometime down the road for a shinier and easier version of yourself? who will lie and cheat and belittle you? who will then tell everyone it was YOUR fault for the relationship's demise...you did this and that, and everything under the sun wrong, when you're pretty darn sure you were a good & devoted companion. So, with these thoughts in mind, if you decide to stay in the dysfunctional relationship and KNOW it's dysfunctional, then go at it half-ass (or less), just like they do with you. Don't be a dummy and commit yourself to someone who doesn't value you. OR...you leave the situation and seek out a better companion. Trust is trust and value is value, whether it's from a person or a company. Just have to respect yourself... however you choose to do it.

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....." then go at it half-ass (or less), just like they do with you."..
Impossible to do with any manager. Do it and be PIPed!

....." then go at it half-ass (or less), just like they do with you."..
Impossible to do with any manager. Do it and be PIPed!

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I think there are quite a few of us on board with the new & improved 15 X 15! That guy's my inspiration! Plus, I'm leaving this sh1thole anyhow, so I'm going out in a way that that sticks it to the company that's stuck it to so many of my friends. FU, Merck.